Greetings from Florida, new member here. 44 years old. Long post incoming, as I am now down a spiral of seemingly never-ending expenditure.
I recently made a trip to Japan - my 2nd trip there, but first trip since my interest piqued in Japanese denim. I was aware of selvedge denim for at least a decade, having watched a few videos here and there on Youtube, I just never went further than that. However, prior to this trip, for whatever reason I clicked on a video or two about Japanese denim; the videos from 'Fjorde' and 'Iron Snail' in particular really caught me and sent me down a rabbit hole - I decided I had to buy some.
So about a month prior to departure, I made it my mission to visit as many denim stores during my trip as possible, and stock up on jeans while I could get them cheap (relative to import pricing, I guess). I pinned twenty four stores on our travel map, between Sapporo, Tokyo, Osaka (and Hong Kong, where we spent 3 days at the end of the trip). I was feeling strongly pulled in the direction of a few specific brands due to their reputation, style, cuts, and branding: SDA, PBJ, Momotaro, Samurai, and Iron Heart. So stops at all of these shops were in order, among others.
Prior to leaving however, I couldn't resist the urge to go ahead and order just one pair, to see if dedicating a good 10-15% of our trip was worth it, or if I was just obsessing for no reason. The brand and model that I chose to start with was Iron Heart 555 SBG. I ordered from Division Road, and it arrived in about 3 days. I put them on, and knew immediately, my obsession was totally warranted. This trip just got a bit more expensive.
During the 17 days, I dragged my [quite supportive, all things considered] wife to each of the following stores, trying on denim:
Sapporo: Flamingo, Unique & Sons, Kapital, Daimaru, Warehouse, and Sapporo BASE
Tokyo: All four Hinoya stores at Ueno station, PBJ, Momotaro, M'Arijuan, Tools Infinity, and Sun House Jinnan
Osaka: Hinoya Namba, SDA
Hong Kong: Workware, Hide & Seek, Black Riot, Take5
Ironically, since we were there during the final 7 days of the. year the 3 shops I most wanted to visit (Iron Heart Osaka, Iron Heart Hachioji, and Samurai Osaka) were all closed! So we'll get to those three next time. My wife even got the bug and snagged a cool pair of TCB's, the 'Cathartt's with the little flaps over the pockets, and heart-shaped buttons.
Attached are a few pics of my haul (I also bought a Momotaro jacket and an Evisu jacket). Upon returning to the states and wearing most of this stuff, I've realized IH is by far my favorite, and have since ordered or wish listed six more (IHSH-428, IHSH-189, IHSB-BIGBUCK, IHSB-BB-NAT, 526J-SLB, and 555S-SLB).
I suppose I'm stuck here now...
Screenshot 2026-01-19 at 11.02.09 PM